This week on LASER, Emily and Cameron discuss batteries built by modified viruses, charge-dependent crystal changes of Lithium/Selenium-Sulfer Batteries, and Microbiological fuel cells built on natural loofah sponges.

35:54 correction: the bacteria don’t “Create” electrons, they just take them off of the food when they’re eating, and they don’t need it.

44:37 For these microbial fuel cells they report a power density of 1090 mW/m^2 (or 1.09 Watts/m^2). For comparision a solar panel is about 170 W/m^2, but solar is the highest power density of the renewable energy technologies, vs 0.22W/m^2 for corn ethanol and 1000W/m^2 for fossil fuels, source home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~vsmil/pdf_pubs/oecd.pdf .

47:00 these icrobial fuel cells would not be for high current high power applications, like cars. They would be useful for slowly generating a constant stream of power to be stored in something like a battery.

52:20 we start the signoff for an unusually-short (but targeted length) episode of LASER!